Slither - Not a Book Review

So I'm currently still reading Jim Butcher's Dead Beat - I hope to get it finished before the end of September...fingers crossed.

I will also be posting on DIK this week, will put a post here to direct you over there on the relevant day. :)

I watched Slither at the weekend, mainly because it starred Nathan Fillion. He was playing the same character he always seems to play but that was fine - that was why I was watching the film after all.

I just had this one doubletake moment when watching it. At one point in the film his character has the choice of whether or not to take a grenade when they go to kill the creature and he decides not to. It was just a complete Serenity moment. Which if you've never seen either Slither or Serenity is going to mean absolutely nothing.

But (just for fun) I put grenade, slither and serenity into google, and lo and behold the first thing that pops up is a reference to the coincidence on IMDB.

I Could Care Less

Just finished Lord of the White Hell Book One, which I loved. I'll be posting a review - hopefully tomorrow. However, on the last page there's a phrase that makes me wince a little. I guess it's a UK thing. Javier says

"You could give a shit about the academy."

Which immediately makes me think about a certain David Mitchell Soapbox episode which for your viewing pleasure I've attached below. :)

If it's Friday it must be Ferrets

I've decided that from now on I shall be employing a fictional ferret grading system (1-5) as follows:-

1 Ferret - the ferret in question is a perfectly normal ferret.

2 Ferrets - the ferret in question is normal but there's something slightly "off" (air quotes) about it. (If it's the first book in the series, the ferret grade may be rising in future books).

3 Ferrets - the ferret in question has some supernatural attributes but they are not annoying and contribute in a useful way to the story.

4 Ferrets - the ferret in question is obviously supernatural. And its talents are more annoying than useful (though it does have its cute moments). It doesn't save the day but without its contribution the hero/heroine would have hit a brick wall.

5 Ferrets - the ferret in question is actually a disguised prince/magician/genie, travelling under a curse/spell. Without him the heroine would never have solved the problem / won the war. It puts the ferret in ferret ex machina.

Persuasion (2007)

Very disappointing. :(

The most important scene in the book - where Captain Wentworth writes the letter - isn't there. All that repressed passion and emotion is replaced by a scene of Anne running all over Bath trying to find Captain Wentworth.

And at the end Captain Wentworth has bought Kellynch for Anne as a wedding present. Did I miss something? I thought Kellynch was entailed.

Not a version I would recommend.

Apropos of Nothing the Google Doodle...

yesterday was of The Little Prince:-

If you go today it's back to the usual format.

I was quite chuffed with myself when I used it at work and thought Why is the Google a drawing from The Little Prince?

Well it's the 110th anniversary of Antoine de Saint-Exupery who wrote The Little Prince. He was born on 29th June 1900.

The Little Prince contains one of my favourite lines in literature and something well worth remembering.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye."

If you've never read The Little Prince I'd urge you to give it a read, even if only once. If nothing else, when I read it, it made me appreciate how easily we lose the gift of our imagination.

Edited to update post - the drawing was only there on the 29th, but I'm glad I spotted it. :) Made me get my copy off the bookshelf and have a re-read. :)

When the Cure is Worse...

...than the problem.

Anyone who's read this blog for any length of time knows that I suffer from migraines. After a particularly hellish week a fortnight ago - four in seven days. I decided to go to the doctor to get something.

Noting that the side effects of these tablets include drowsiness I waited until this week off from work to start taking them.

Now to me, drowsiness means feeling sleepy; not they will remove your capability to hold a thought in your head leaving you all alone inside your skull with a void where your thoughts and personality used to be.

My sister (the nurse) assures me that if I keep taking them my body will get used to it and this won't happen any longer.

Erm...let me think about that...no thanks.

I now know what it's like to be a zombie I don't need to repeat the experience. I'd rather suffer the migraine.

Regular blogging service will resume very shortly.

Heroines who Fart

It doesn't happen does it? (Luckily this post is not going where you think it is. :) )

I've been reading for a very long time and to my recollection I can only recall it happening in one book - Princess Daisy by Judith Krantz (okay, now I am having an eighties flashback).

And see how times change. All the girls in high school today are reading Twilight. I remember we read Lace by Shirley Conran. Eek, how embarassing is that now? Though to be honest maybe this had more to do with all the trashy mini-series that were on in the eighties?

I also read The Dancing Gods trilogy which started my love of fantasy, and I absolutely loved the Dragonriders books by Anne McCaffrey.

So which books were you reading in high school, anything embarassing that you're willing to admit to? I have a copy of Mark of the Demon to give away to someone who comments on this post. Poster will be chosen randomnly and winner will be announced on Friday.

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Still a couple of hours to go in my little corner of the world. But in some places it's been 2010 for a while now.

I wish everyone the best for the coming year and hope it will include lots of reading and good books.

Make a Snowflake

I was just going through my e-mail deleting stuff and I found this link from a couple of years ago.Make a Snowflake.

Be warned it's quite addictive.

Falling Out of the Story

Whenever I read a story I like to lose myself in it. One of the things that I really don't like is when something says in big quote marks:-

"You're reading a story!"

This is usually caused by info-dumping. I think the last time it happened was when I read Karen Chance's first Cassie Palmer story. And it happened again this week when I started reading Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland.

Right at the beginning of the story the heroine Kara has summmoned a demon...

He towered over me, his head topping mine by several feet...

Erm...hold on a moment did you say several feet? Exactly how high are the ceilings in your house anyway? But luckily the heroine can take a few moments away from worrying about the demon in her house to inform the reader

Fortunately for him, my Acadian style house had the traditional fifteen foot ceilings designed for the subtropical climate of south Louisiana where high ceilings helped keep houses cool.

Great. Good to know. But between those two sentences you've knocked me completely out of the story. If the heroine can take time aaway from the demon in her living room to inform me about the intricacies of Acadian architecture why should I be bothered about the freakishly tall other planar being?

I'm hoping this is a one-off as I've heard really good things about this book and at some point this year I would like to find a new UF author to follow. I've been kind of underwhelmed with the UF I've read this year.

Last Assignment...

...submitted.

Yay! and Phew! Thank goodness for that. All over bar the revision and the exam. :(

Normal service to resume shortly.

Fallen (So Far), Updates and other Stuff

I am stuggling with Fallen by Claire Delacroix, for a number of reasons. At least one of them is probably trivial and stupid, but there you go.

• It's set in (New) Gotham City, so I keep expecting Batman to show up. I don't care if Gotham is a real city in the US. If you are writing an original story don't set it in a place so synonymous with such a famous urban fantasy character.
• In the frontispiece there's a quote from another author which describes the book as 'perfect'. Being a glass half full kind of person I guess this immediately puts me on the defensive as a reader. I think even if someone does describe your book as perfect - don't put it in there.
• There's conflicting stuff going on - by that I mean the plot is contradicting itself. And the prose is quite heavy.
• It's labelled on the spine as paranormal romance. Now from what I've read so far, that's incorrect genre labelling. I'd say this is urban fantasy, verging on (future dystopia) science fiction.

I'm not even on p.100 yet and I am struggling. I don't like to write a review if I haven't finished the book so I am going to persevere for the moment.

I will add that the hero is interesting. His part of the story is more engaging, the first scene where his wings are amputated is harrowing. The heroine is more two-dimensional, hopefully she'll improve. And the intercuts of newspaper articles and legal pronouncements - I like, it fleshes the worldbuilding out. The story I think though is somewhat reminiscent of Lyda Morehouse's (hope I've remembered her name right) Archangel series. Will keep going for the moment.

Magic Strikes review will be up at the weekend. :) Loved it!

I am now on Goodreads. As soon as I work out how to put the widget on my sidebar I will be doing that.

Currently Up to 'B'

Following the unsuccessful visit to Borders. I have determined to sort out my books once and for all.

It is taking forever and is not the most thrilling thing I've ever done. However, I'm discovering that I am way behind on a lot of series.

I have just completed the letter B. And the only authors whose series I have managed to keep up to date with so far are - Kelley Armstrong (though not her YA series) and Anne Bishop.

All the others I've either not got the books or they are currently lost somewhere in the TBR pile or on various other bookshelves. A job to be tackled after this one.

So currently behind on the following authors:-

Lara Adrian, Ann Aguirre, Ilona Andrews, Jennifer Armintrout, Jenna Black, Patricia Briggs*, Suzanne Brockmann, Lois McMaster Bujold (Chalion), Meljean Brook**, Jim Butcher***

This is only up to B, and whilst I'd console myself with the fact that perhaps most of the authors whose series I like to follow have names beginning with A or B, I know that the first author in C is Rachel Caine.


* - I blame this on the fact that I bought the fug ugly UK cover and just can't bring myself to open it.

** - Not sure I have the strength to catch up on this one. I really enjoyed the first book, but it was very long. The second book is in my TBR pile I'm sure and I seem to remember it being quite thick as well.

*** - I fell behind on this one when the publisher changed from US to UK and it was a real pain in the ass to get hold of the books. I seem to remember this is also why I intially stopped reading Kim Harrison and Charlaine Harris as well.

A Couple of Things

Not going to be able to post my TBR review as I haven't yet finished the book and I'm imminently off to see Star Trek and won't have time to write it up anyway. Sorry...but at least I'm getting a TBR review done this month, will just be a couple of days late.

Heads up - North and South - starring Richard Armitage. For anyone in the UK - like me - who didn't see this when it was first on. It's being repeated on Sundays (I think) on BBC4 at 7pm.


And finally a word about robin's/robin egg blue. Just 'cause this is niggling me at the moment. Normally when I'm reading a historical I don't let the fine details bother me too much, I never took history so most of them pass me by.

However, I like bird watching and for anyone not familiar with the European robin so often seen on Christmas cards with his bright red breast - they do not lay blue eggs. The eggs of the European robin are cream, buff or white and speckled or blotched with reddish brown. Therefore I'm pretty certain your english heroine (who has never been to America) cannot compare anything that's that particular shade of blue with the egg of a robin.

It's Just the Beetroot

Bear with me.

In the UK there's a tv programme called Masterchef, which features amateur cooks competing against one another. One of the first tests they take part in is an invention test, where all they have to do is create a dish from everyday ingredients. For the most part this goes off okay. But every so often it goes cringe-makingly wrong. A contestant will make a perfect spaghetti carbonara, panic and add soy sauce at the last minute. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then, there's the things that seem like they shouldn't work - putting beetroot in chocolate cake - but they do. (I admit here that I can't cook, so those examples are pulled from my terrible memory).

So...back to books.

We get to hear about the 'soy sauce' all the time. The urban fantasy marketed as paranormal romance where the hero dies at the end. The contemporary romance that morphs into a time travel. The series that changes genre halfway through.

But what about the beetroot? These are books that you often find have 50% five star Amazon reviews and 50% one star.

And why am I thinking about this? Lol.

Currently I'm reading In the Blood by Adrian Phoenix and I've kind of slipped into beetroot territory. The protagonist Dante is a maker and can create and recreate the world around him. So far in the series the strings suspending my disbelief have held firm. But as I come to the last part of this book I struggle a little bit to hold onto them. But hold onto them I do.

In Twilight Fall by Lynn Viehl, the sixth (and penultimate book) in the Darkyn series, we are suddenly introduced to a new type of supernatural. Previous to this, the conflict between the Darkyn and Brethren was compelling enough, that I didn't feel I was missing anything by not having other supernatural creatures in the story. Again I feel my belief in the world being pushed to the limit but Ms. Viehl manages to hold onto my attention as a reader and keep me with the story.

What is it about some writers that they can take you to the edge and you trust them, even as they are dangling you over the cliff?

As a Bibliophile...

I'm finding the Book Depository Live page strangely engrossing.

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/live

And kind of calming, lol, a bit like watching fish.

From Smart Bitches

I'm sure everyone's read this already, (I followed the link at Smart Bitches but this review had me laughing out loud this morning before I went to work.

Not work safe, and probably not for you if you're (very) easily offended.

Chris's Invincible Superblog - Review of Taror #53

TBR Wednesday 2008 in Review

So way back in March I took up the TBR Wednesday challenge as set up by Avidbookreader. To read and review a book that had been on my TBR pile for the third Wednesday in every month. Books had to be published in 2007 or earlier. And I did it! Even managed it the month I got my third Wednesday's muddled up...just.


March - Bloodring by Faith Hunger - B-
April - Lady of Mercy by Michelle Sagara West - A
May - Poison Study - Maria V. Snyder - B+
June - No Rest for the Wicked - Kresley Cole - B+
July - Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night - Kresley Cole - A-
August - The Raven Prince - Elizabeth Hoyt - A
September - Claimed by Shadow - Karen Chance - A
October - The Road to Hell - Jackie Kessler - A-
November - The Taste of Night - Vicki Pettersson - B+
December - Voice of Crow - Jeri Smith-Ready - A

What if anything have I learnt from this challenge?

That I am trying to follow waaaayyyyy too many series? That I get easily sidetracked by new stuff, and occasionally forget what's on my TBR pile because the pile of books is that massive. Well...yes.

But I've also learnt that I have some hidden gems in there. I wasn't disappointed by any of the books I picked and I gave over half of them A grades. I finally found an hisotrical romance author I can read - Elizabeth Hoyt - and managed to get two books closer to catching up on the Immortals After Dark series. I'm not saying I'll ever overcome the lure of the new book - maybe that's the fear I'll be missing out on something - but I do need to take a much better look at my TBR pile and what's hiding there.

I'm not reading as much as I used to, but I'm going to try and make a better effort at keeping up with the series I'm following. I know if I get too far behind it can be difficult to work up the momentum to catch up again.

Anybody else pulled a great TBR book out of the pile this year and wondered why they hadn't read it sooner?

Urban Fantasy - UK vs US Book Covers

Or - why are some UK covers so darn ugly? And I know it's not all of them. It just seems that a lot of the series I like that end up getting published in the UK then end up with some of the most awful covers, to the point where if I'm iffy about continuing with a series it can be the final nail in the coffin.

Some evidence below. In all cases the US cover is on the left, UK cover on the right.

The US covers for the Mercy Thompson series are gorgeous. I know there are people who like the UK covers, but to me when compared to the stunning US ones they are kind of yuck. As I love the series I have to find the US covers. Some of the UK urban fantasy covers are just so ugly and rather generic.

For the Kim Harrison series when the books started being published in the UK I kind of stopped getting them. Seriously, I think if I'd still been able to get hold of the US covers easily I would probably have continued with the series. As it is I think I stalled out at book 4. That book is still on my TBR pile, but I've kind of never got round to reading it and book 5 languishes on my Amazon wishlist.

This doesn't just have to do with the book covers, though when they are that yellow it doesn't help. When you're in the UK and are into a US series, when a UK publisher comes along and buys the series you're happy that it's good news for the author. But in general the publisher then f*cks up the relationship the reader has with the series. The number of series I have stopped reading because a UK publisher gained the rights - Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series, Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse, the above mentioned Kim Harrison's series. :sigh: but I guess that's a post for another day. Back to the yucky covers.

The Working for the Devil cover illustrates what I mean by generic. If you removed the author's name from the cover, this could easily be a UK cover for a Kim Harrison book.

And, okay, I get it, they've given urban fantasy an identity on the bookshelf at Borders. But it's such an ugly one.

Compare the three US covers, they are all unique. And whilst the Working for the Devil cover is not one of my favourites, I'd take it over the blah blah look of the three UK covers any day.

But, I admit, there are always exceptions to any sweeping generalizations I may make. :) I love Kelley Armstrongs UK covers. They've given the series a strong identity, but are individual to each book and not blah.

And for gorgeous painted covers, you can't get much better than the UK Gollancz covers for the Warprize series by Elizabeth Vaughan. I do like the US cover but the UK one is just beautiful.

Anyone have any others they'd like to share?

Amazon Reviews

Was just over at Rachel Caine's (Weather Wardens) livejournal.

Her post of 28th April Taking up John Scalzi's 1 star Challenge is well worth a read.